The Logical Limits of Liberty & Needism

Your needs can’t all be as easily fenced off as land. But that map-like model lurks behind unbalanced ideas about private and public interests. The “public good” is both bedrock and climate to all private interests. No logic of liberty should ignore their inalienable interdependence.

The “tragedy of the commons” shows why: Herders using a commons (public pasture) seemingly have rational incentives to add animals; grazing is free, and profits can be increased. But if others do the same, the commons becomes overgrazed. So short-term asocial self-interest becomes self-defeating, causing collective tragedy. Two fixes are known; either fence off, assign property rights, and leave it to the new owners; or manage the commons for everyone’s benefit, which entails restricting freedom of use, but prevents tragedy (Elinor Olstrom’s Nobel Prized-work showed how). The moral: too much “freedom in a commons brings ruin to all.”

The “public good” and the nation itself both face “tragedy of the commons” logic. In politics, special interests that prioritize their gain above the public good resemble those overgrazing herders. But it’s always irrational to discount the health of what supplies your needs. And no “politics of parts” can work unless the health of the whole governs. A nation isn’t only the sum of its special interests, or even the private interests of its people. A workable nation must balance those with the health of the whole. America’s founders agreed, they defined duties “to promote the general Welfare” and to enact laws “necessary for public good.”